The National Association of
Black Accountants, Inc. Northern New
Jersey Chapter (NABA-NNJ) was incorporated in 1975. Since its
inception, the posture of the Northern New Jersey Chapter has been one of
aggressive full participation in the Association's mission and goals. Since
1975 NABA-NNJ has had at least one member and sometimes two members sitting
on the Board of Directors of the Association. In 1990 the president of the
National Association was from NABA-NNJ and in 1991 was re-elected. That
aggressive full participation was evident again in 1990 when we put forth
the idea of co-hosting the national convention with another chapter in the
Association. This had never been tried before and in 1992 NABA-NNJ along
with the Philadelphia Chapter co-hosted the most profitable and talked about
National Convention to that date.
NABA-NNJ was one of the first
chapters to present seminars at the general meetings. In 1989 we became a
recognized sponsor of CPE credits in the State of New Jersey. Now our
members who are CPA's can get credit for coming and participating in the
monthly meetings. We also established our Entrepreneur's Corner. For members
who are thinking about going into business we bring in entrepreneur's who
can relate their experiences, both positive and negative, of owning a
business. We do not limit the type of business to accounting services, we
have had franchise owners, a magazine owner/editor and a husband and wife
team who created a new board game. NABA-NNJ also established a Corporate
Partners Program to, in part, provide our professional members with access
to corporate representatives, to network, exchange ideas and create
relationships. This "aggressive participation" in 1986 enabled the
chapter to win the Association's "1+1=4000" membership contest by
doubling its membership from the previous year. In 1992 NABA-NNJ won the
Association's "Member Retention Drive" by retaining over 90% of
the previous year members. To win these two national contests took
aggressive membership recruiting, the type of recruiting that enabled NABA-NNJ
for years to maintain being the third largest chapter in the Association.
